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Would you want to split something?
How to ask to share at a restaurant.
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When you go to a restaurant do you struggle to decide what you want and sometimes want to ask a close friend to share a meal.
Today, find out exactly how to ask this in English for a great meal and a great connection.
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That's allearsenglish.com slash f-l-u-e-n-c-y-s-c-o-r-e Hello there, Michelle.
How's everything today?
Everything is good over here.
Lindsay, how are you?
Good.
We're here on this sassy Saturday.
Yes.
All good, all good.
I'm sure maybe you're thinking of going out for dinner tonight or on the weekend, Michelle.
So I'm curious about your habits.
Michelle, do you ever split a meal with someone because you both want a taste of a dish?
I
Because essentially, you know, you don't have to choose.
You could split.
Yeah.
Yes.
I will definitely do this.
I know my sister-in-law also does a lot of splitting.
My mom, you know, and sometimes it's also like, maybe you want to, it's about health.
Maybe you think oh, I don't want to eat that whole burger, but I want something and maybe we'll split a.
We're always, Dan and I split a sandwich and a salad.
Right, that's what we do too.
Yeah, it's like a salad and a main dish, or an appetizer and a main dish.
You save money for sure.
Oh yeah, because there's so much, so many times when it's too much food anyway.
So for sure yeah, but this is a real skill.
Lindsay, would you do typically think that you would suggest this to someone you aren't really that close with, someone you don't know that well, maybe at a business lunch?
No, I would definitely not do that, Michelle.
I would warn against that for sure.
This is something for you and your partner or you and a good friend.
Right.
Not a new person.
Not a business colleague for sure.
Yeah.
But this is for people who you are closer to.
Right.
And I think it's more common if maybe, if you don't know the people that well, if you're just splitting an appetizer between oh, do you guys want to get some chips and guac?
And we'll all split it.
Right.
Yeah.
But not for a main person. dish, right?
Right.
Because this is more, a little bit more intimate the way this works, right?
Sometimes, I mean, what do you do with Dan?
Do you typically have one dish that comes and just kind of eat off the same dish, or do you ask for a second plate and then kind of push your portion onto your plate?
Let's get into the details here, michelle.
We want to know everything.
Um, i would say it depends on what it is okay and where we're sitting right.
So sometimes if we're, if we're maybe diagonal, you know, we're more likely if we're on the same side.
Maybe we'll, i don't know.
But yeah, sometimes we won't even order two entrees.
We'll just split one thing and try to save money, try to be a little healthier.
What about you?
Yeah, totally.
I think eating off the same plate, sometimes in a casual restaurant, but sometimes honestly, they'll bring you a second plate.
We usually say we're going to share the ravioli or something.
Yeah.
Right, and they'll bring you a second plate in a nicer place.
It does sound good right now, doesn't it?
Are you hungry right now?
Me too.
Yeah, it's dinner time.
Yeah, dinner time right now.
I had a nice piece of cheese before we started, so I'm good.
Sounds great.
Well, this is a connection moment, Michelle, right?
Why is it a connection moment?
Yeah, I mean, you're kind of becoming, you're close with someone.
Again, it's not necessarily.
This isn't a how to make friends by asking them split food episode um.
Asking them to split a meal episode um.
I mean yeah again, like i said, you could say oh, you guys want to split some apps, we'll get some wings, we'll get some this or whatever.
But yeah, if we're talking more, this is just, you know, kind of in a funny way, deepening your relationship with somebody or showing how well you know them.
Right, it really is.
It's so interesting and you also kind of have to know what they might like.
Right, you have to know that you're on the same page, like with my partner.
We cannot.
We struggle a lot to split pizza Because we just can't like.
There's very few places where we intersect when it comes to pizza, what we like.
But other things we can definitely split.
So I don't know.
It's a really tricky thing.
So Michelle, today's lesson is about what do we say when we want to inquire about this?
I know that many of our listeners are potentially married to native English speakers, right?
Living in the US, living in the UK.
And this would be a next level thing to impress your partner if you knew how to say this.
I love that idea.
Yeah, so cool yeah, definitely.
Um, so what?
What's one thing?
You could say what's the first one?
All right, would you want to split something?
You could get the x and i can get the y.
Or if you just don't even have the idea yet, you could just say would you want to split something?
Find out first and then get into the details.
But yeah, you could say something like you could get the tuna sandwich and i could get the salad.
Yeah, because these days it is really expensive in the us to eat out.
You know, it just feels like the prices keep going up.
So it does make a lot of sense, economically speaking, too.
Right.
Yeah.
Or you could just be more direct.
Do you want to split a blank and a blank?
Right.
So do you want to split a sandwich and a salad?
Right.
That's what we do all the time.
Yeah.
When we were on the cruise.
I remember my sister-in-law.
She always inquired to my brother oh, do you want to split something?
And one night he was like, sure.
And then the other night he was just He just said, no, no, that's pretty funny.
There is that moment.
Yeah.
Isn't there.
When you don't, when you're the person who actually doesn't want to split something, you're kind of thinking oh, this sounds great to me.
I found my perfect match and I don't want to split it.
And then you have to do the rejection.
You don't want someone poking their little fork into your, you know, to your plate, get away.
Right.
That, and then you have to know how to answer that.
And that's legit too.
Right.
Maybe you were really hungry or something.
Fair enough.
Fair enough.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
Or what's something if you say you're not sure what you want.
So you could say I'm in between the pizza and the pasta.
I want to share something.
Right.
So I'm in.
So to be in between is a good phrase, a bonus phrase for our listeners today.
To be in between X and Y yes, and that's a bonus.
I mean, that's used for so many things.
I mean any decision you're making.
You could say I'm in between this and that.
Right for sure um yeah, so yeah.
So you said you're most likely to split with your partner.
I mean, so what?
Yeah, like I want to hear.
I'm curious more about this pizza situation because to me, pizza sounds pretty benign.
I can't believe that that's like the, The sticking point.
No, because when you go to a restaurant that has a lot of pizza options, they're usually either meat heavy or veg heavy.
Like I love the pizzas that have olives and spinach and lots of beautiful vegetables, olive oil.
And then my partner tends to like the meat heavy stuff like the sausage and the ham and load it up.
Um, and so that's just, there's no intersection there.
There's no intersection.
Sometimes that's true that now it makes sense.
Yeah.
Yeah.
They'll often, you go to for pizza, they will split the pizza.
You could order, can we have half your ham and sausage and half veg vegetarian?
Right.
I also like the veg stuff.
But um my my, um pizza choice.
If i really want to choose two toppings, mine is very um, you either love it or you hate it.
Well, first of all, i love pineapple pizza.
That is a love it or hate it thing.
I like it, i'm gonna love it, like it and i also have it.
I want it with mushrooms on it too.
Pineapple and mushroom okay, fair enough.
Or, mushrooms are also very controversial for pizza.
And the other thing that i think is very controversial is chicken on pizza.
Fan or not a fan, michelle.
Um, i'm okay with it.
Um, I feel like we just recently talked about this.
We may have talked about this.
I don't like it.
I don't like it.
It's just weird to me.
It's like chicken or pizza, not chicken on pizza.
But you travel the world and you have so many different iterations of pizza.
It's super cool.
I love it.
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Okay, so now how do we answer then?
So the next piece is obviously responding when you ask someone if they want to split.
So what could we say?
Okay, well, if you do want to, you could say, sure, or that works for me.
Or you say I'd split something.
What are you thinking?
Now, this one's interesting because you're kind of hedging here.
You're not saying i will split something, you're saying i'd split something, i would split something.
So it's kind of, you're not, you're dipping your toes in, you're showing you're not a hundred percent.
Let's see if we match up.
Yeah, it's really important for our listeners to pay attention to the grammar here when, When you're in a busy restaurant, it's noisy.
There's waiters flying everywhere.
If you want to know the difference between I'll split something with you versus I'd split something, and I can hear the difference in my tone of voice too.
Right.
So don't consider it.
It's not like done and sold yet.
You need to choose something that they also might want.
Right.
So.
Right.
Yeah.
Right.
And then there's the scenario which we've been touching on is, if you already know what you want and you know, then somebody is asking you to split and you wanted that.
So you could say I could split, but I was thinking about getting the X. Does that work?
So I could split.
You could either say it like this.
I could split or you could say I could split.
Right.
But I was thinking about getting the cheese steak.
Yes.
Right.
And important life lesson here.
Don't change your order.
If you agree to split, don't say OK, I'll get that instead, because then you always end up annoyed with yourself later.
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Or, or what if you just don't want that?
Like your brother-in-law just didn't want it anymore to split the second night.
He was like, no, something went wrong the first night, I guess.
Right.
What could you say, Michelle?
Um, I think I'm okay.
I know.
I just want the right.
Yeah.
You just want your own plate.
Yeah.
Fair enough.
Is it awkward to say no?
I think sometimes I do feel a little bit bad when Dan comes to me and oh, you want to get this?
Not really, you know, and then I almost cave, right?
That's a good bonus word.
What does it mean to cave?
Cave is a great bonus word for today, Michelle.
So to give in, to give in to, yeah, to not go with what you wanted originally to compromise.
Yeah, exactly.
But I usually, you know, I don't know.
I'll do a lot of meal sharing after I get the meal.
So it usually kind of works out, but it can feel awkward to reject a hit.
It can.
Yeah.
There can be an awkward moment there for sure.
Yeah.
But good to stick to your guns, I think.
Otherwise, you'll be annoyed later.
Yes, exactly.
So should we do a role play to show how this will look?
Let's do it.
So here we are close friends.
We're looking at a menu.
We're sitting down at a restaurant.
Okay.
All right.
Everything looks amazing.
Seriously, I can't decide.
Would you want to split something?
I'd split something.
What are you thinking?
Well, I was deciding between the eggs Benedict and the omelet.
I'd split with you.
I'll split with you.
Okay, perfect.
So that's interesting.
So you indicated you were open to it, but again, it's a hedge because you're not sure what I want.
And then I let you know, and then you confirmed.
I'll split with you.
That's the confirmation right there.
I'm good with those options.
I like those choices.
Although it's interesting because, in my opinion, breakfast is the one thing that I that I see split less, less frequently.
I don't really go out to breakfast much or brunch.
I don't know if you do, Michelle.
Yeah, we've talked.
We don't like brunch.
But I feel like it's not really much as much of a splitting.
I feel like maybe people are still, you know, like eyes half shut.
They've got their coffee.
They just kind of have their own plate most of the time.
Yeah.
Do you know what I mean?
Yeah.
Yeah, that's true.
I see what you're saying.
So what did we say here?
All right.
So I said, I can't decide.
And then you take that in and you say, would you want to split something?
Uh huh.
Yeah.
Would you want to split something?
And then you say, you said I'd split something, right?
The intonation there is important.
Okay.
And then I asked you what you were thinking.
And I said, you said, well, I was deciding between the eggs Benedict and the omelet.
And then you confirmed I'll split with you.
Right.
So we're going to get one of the two, right?
We're lined up in terms of what we want.
Nice.
Right.
Or we might each get one and then split those.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, that could be another way of saying splitting.
So you each get one of the two and then you just maybe eat a little bit and then try both.
I love that.
Another episode we can check out right now if you want more.
All Ears English guys is.
Are There Free Refills?
How to Ask for More Food and Drink in English.
And that's episode 2477.
Michelle, any takeaway for today?
This is just a fun topic.
I mean, it's gonna, it happens.
I also kind of wonder about the cultural piece.
I wonder if it's common in other cultures that people are splitting or do you do family style?
Um, you know, how common is this?
So definitely let us know.
Maybe we'll do a question, a survey question today about that.
Yeah, we'll do a poll question for sure.
You have to be in Spotify, by the way, guys, to participate in that poll.
So consider subscribing in Spotify.
But you can also consume our show on YouTube or Apple Podcasts or any place you get your podcasts.
So, Michelle, thanks for being here.
Good times.
All right, Lindsay, thanks for talking about this with me.
All right.
Bye bye.
Bye.
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